On the Jersey Shore, the Wildwoods are as known for their painstaking preservation of the Doo Wop days of yore as for the famously wide white sand beaches — a motel and diner ode to the days of rock ’n’ roll. Generations of families from Delaware and Philadelphia and all over Jersey return each summer without fail, for mood as much as seafood.
But each year, the island also renews itself. And the off-season has been particularly busy this year, with a host of new places to eat and drink.
The biggest developments in the area will be big indeed: a 180-seat hotel steak and seafood restaurant with a beat-thumping pool bar and nightclub next door, and a hulking entertainment complex with a pair of restaurants in Rio Grande. A Philly cheesesteak icon plans a new outpost in Wildwood, and so does a Brooklyn sandwich shop braiding its own fresh mootz.
Families coming back to the Wildwood area will also find plenty of new homespun offerings, whether scratch-made crab gnocchi from an old family recipe, Mediterranean tapas in a revived century-old movie theater or the novel treat of cereal-swirled ice cream.
Here’s the rundown on 10 new spots to eat and drink in and around the Wildwoods.
Italian and seafood on the Wildwood Boardwalk at Stephen’s Restaurant
401 E. Wildwood Ave., Wildwood, 609-849-9037, stephens-restaurant.com. Breakfast and dinner.
Stephen’s Restaurant opened just this April on the Wildwood boardwalk. But history here runs deep.
The recipe for chef Stephen Quici’s laboriously handmade gnocchi comes from his Southern Italian grandmother — slathered in blush sauce and jumbo lump crab — and so does the kitchen table he rolls out the gnocchi on.
The painting of the Last Supper on the wall? That was his grandfather’s. Paint by numbers.
Quici will blend two old traditions at Stephen’s: Shore seafood and family Italian, from sauteed chicken or veal in wine sauce to Shore-classic crab gravy to an Italian fishermen’s stew of mussels, clams, shrimp, lobster and scallops.
The Philly native has been coming to Wildwood since he was a child. And so decades ago, Quici also remembers eating a $10.99 lobster-filet mignon surf and turf at the old boardwalk lobster shack that used to be where Stephen’s now stands.
In honor, he offers the same dish on his own menu. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t do $10.99,” he said, laughing.
But the restaurant’s history also goes back to Philly, where Quici opened another Stephen’s Restaurant two decades back. Before he was even officially open in Wildwood, some of his old customers drove hours to eat his food again.
“They recognized me, and I recognized them,” Quici said. “It was a very humbling experience.”
Tapas in a cheer-filled movie theater: Old Movies by the Sea
4005 Pacific Ave., Wildwood. oldmoviesbythesea.com.
More than a century ago, the little building at 4005 Pacific Ave. opened as a what was then called a nickelodeon: a 5-cent theater showing a new and wondrous thing called “motion pictures.”
That theater likely closed in the 1920s, and in the meantime, the building’s been a baby clothes store, a shop selling musical instruments and a performing arts theater.
But last fall, partners Glenn Kingsbury and Karen Drew restored the old place back to its original glory as a plush-walled 40-seat moviehouse showing films from the golden age. The pair has also been hosting live comedy, birthday parties and even cheerleading competitions: Kingsbury runs cheer contests under the name Spirit Brands, and the theater is now a new home to competitive enthusiasm.
But as tourist season begins, Old Movies by the Sea will be a place to get dinner with a show. The theater’s manager, Jeff Levine, once cooked at restuarants in New York. And so the movie theater’s food menu is an ambitious mix of tapas and catering fare: honeyed shrimp with walnuts, bacon-wrapped dates, Thai-spiced skewers and thick-meated “pinwheels” that look a bit like stromboli.
Order when you buy your movie or comedy tickets, and the food will be yours when you arrive.
Cereal-ice cream swirls: Utterly Ice Cream, Cereal and Coffee Bar
3411 Pacific Ave., Wildwood, 609-522-0590. Open mornings to 2 p.m. and in the evening.
The Wildwoods, like the foodies of TikTok, are undergoing a bit of a cereal frenzy.
Last year, North Wildwood saw the opening of a coffee bar called McCoy’s with cereal and cereal-topped doughnuts. This year, another turn of the screw: Utterly, near the Wildwood boardwalk, offers cereal-infused ice cream.
More:6 new restaurants in Wildwood to check out this summer
After running an ice cream shop at the nearby Yankee Clipper motel, owner Danielle Aydelotte has moved on to crunchier pastures with Utterly. Her new ice cream, cereal and coffee bar allows customers to choose a cereal among any of a dozen options ranging from Cap’n Crunch to Froot Loops to seasonal flavors like a recent Peeps cereal, then choose an ice cream flavor they want to mix it with.
Aydelotte can then blend the cereal and ice cream together using a machine called the Swirl Freeze. She’d first seen the notion on the internet, she said — and then she had to try it.
“You get the silky smoothness of the ice cream,” Aydelotte said, “and you have a tiny bit of crunch from the cereal.”
From there, each soft-serve cone can then be drizzled with white chocolate or fudge or other flavors.
Utterly’s coffee offerings are also betting on breakfast, with cereal-infused milk customers can mix into their coffee.
“This was our first week that we put out the Cinnamon Toast Crunch-infused milk,” she said. “And we pretty much sold out of that within the first day or two.”
Flapjacks and a mission: Brandon’s Pancakes and Ice Cream Parlor
6200 New Jersey Ave., Wildwood Crest, 609-305-4807.In his high school yearbook at Cape May Regional, Karl Famiano declared he would one day own a pancake house. And in Wildwood Crest’s former Doo-Wop Drive-Thru, Famiano finally made good on that pledge.
Brandon’s Pancakes and Ice Cream Parlor opened this April with pancakes and biscuits and gravy in the morning, hoagies and ribeye cheesesteaks at lunch.
But the pancake house picked up a new mission along the way. Brandon’s is a place designed to be welcoming and inclusive to people with autism — and indeed to all people.
Aimee Famiano, Karl’s wife and partner in the restaurant, is a longtime special needs educator. Upon moving to the Shore from Pennsylvania, she noted that there were relatively few resources for people like her 25-year-old son, Brandon, nonverbal and living with autism.
And so the pancake house that bears his name is also a place where Brandon can work and call his own.
“He contributes, and he’s kind of like the little mayor,” Aimee Famiano said. “He walks around and shakes people’s hands.”.
Brandon’s also provides employment for other people in Cape May County with special needs, and the Famianos have teamed with local schools to offer both work training and a destination for field trips.
And if the food sometimes comes out a little slower than at some short-order kitchens, so be it. Famiano asks folks to be a little patient.
“We’re not only here to make money,” she said. “We’re here to be warm and kind and employ people who need it, and show them kindness and compassion.”
Vietnamese soups and banh mi at Cape May Pho and Boba
709 Route 9 South, Cape May Court House, 609-536-2545. Lunch and dinner.
Though the towns surrounding Atlantic City have long been home to a bustling Vietnamese dining scene, a steaming bowl of pho has not been an easy find on the Cape.
As of last fall, owners Thao “Tracey” Le, and husband Tai Pham, changed all that with a pho and boba shop in Cape May Courthouse serving bubble teas and scratch-made pho prepared for as long as 48 hours — not to mention a broad menu of Vietnamese classics. Le’s extended family helps out with preparation, she told the Cape May County Herald in January.
In addition to pho, the menu includes banh mi sandwiches, vermicelli noodle (bun) plates, and rice dishes from pork chop to bo luc lac shaking beef. Among beverages, the familiar condensed-milk Vietnamese coffee is joined by modern innovations such as coffee with sea salt whipped cream, and a host of milk teas.
Greek-American favorites at George’s Place West
1050 NJ-47 South, Rio Grande, 609-435-5010, kararestaurantgroup.com/georges-west. Breakfast, lunch, dinner.
If you’ve eaten brunch in Cape May County, chances are you’ve eaten at George’s — a nearly 50-year-old tradition of Greek-American dining on the Shore, more recently expanded into an empire by brothers Yianni and Peter Karapanagiotis.
Just as new freeway lanes bring traffic seemingly from nowhere, each new George’s location brings new crowds to fill it. New brunch lines for tiramisu waffles and Greek omelets. New lunch lines for gyro and falafel. And plenty of dinner reservations for braised lamb shank or branzino.
A fifth location, George’s West, just opened in Rio Grande, west of Wildwood. And if the past is any judge, this too will inspire lines for brunch. But maybe, just maybe, you can get there first.
Steak and seafood next to a pool bar and nightclub: Fairview Social in the Seaport Suites
3601 Pacific Ave., Wildwood. bgcap.co. Openng projected by Memorial Day 2023.
Among the biggest projects to hit Wildwood this year, the 64-room Seaport Suites hotel will open as soon as Memorial Day at the former site of the once-legendary Fairview club and music venue.
On the bottom floor will be an eventual trio of ambitious projects from BG Capital, the developers behind nearby Seaport Pier: This will include a pool “day club” with two outdoor bars called Fourcast, an indoor bar and venue called Vice, and a 189-seat restaurant and bar called Fairview Social helmed by a former chef at multiple former Trump properties.
Head chef Stephen Johnson’s menu is under development, but needless to say, there will be steak. And there will be seafood.
The restaurant will offer an “elevated” dining experience and decor, but with none of the stuffiness of fine dining, said operating manager Jason Weiss, a longtime DJ and event promoter. Think old-school high banquettes and high-top tables, he said, and a bar through the center of the space, TVs tuned to every sporting event that exists.
In part, the restaurant is meant to pay homage to the classic nightclub that gave Fairview Social its name, Weiss said.
“We’re trying to really keep the decor and the vibe and the feelings of that old space intact here,” he said. “We actually want people to feel like they’re revisiting things from their childhood and from growing up.”
Fresh moozadell and Brooklyn-style subs: Charlie’s Sandwich Shop
5400 Pacific Ave., Wildwood, charliessandwichshopsi.com. Planned by end of May.
Brooklyn-style Italian subs are coming to Wildwood.
For years, co-owners Calogero Bellomo and Charles Tornabene have made glistening braids of fresh mozzarella cheese and old-school Italian sandwiches in Brooklyn and Staten Island, whether a chicken-cutle “Malaka” or a salami and fresh-moozadell “Gonzo.”
For a lot longer, Tornabene has been coming down with his family to Wildwood. Finally, he figured, maybe he “oughta bring a little piece of Brooklyn in here.”
Tornabene promises fresh bread each day from New York. They’ll make the mozzarella. They’ll cook up their own roast beef on special. They’ll do everything they do in Brooklyn, Tornabene said: antipasto platters and caprese salads, a “Papa Sal” chicken parm with fried eggplant, a mortadella-and-pepper number called the “Humidor.”
Charlie’s hopes to be open by Memorial Day.
“We grew up goin’ to Wildwood every summer as kids,” Tornabene said. “So why not just plant a seed there? You know what I mean?”
Thick-slab cheesesteaks from Philly: Steve’s Prince of Steaks
2701 New Jersey Ave., Wildwood. stevesprinceofsteaks.com. Planned for July.
Steve’s Prince of Steaks is coming to Wildwood.
Steve’s, if you don’t know, is a 40-year classic in the world of Philadelphia cheesesteaks: a Northeast Philly stalwart founded by namesake Steven Iliescu. The shop is well known for its slab-style thick-cut beef, with devout loyalty among those who want cheesesteak that looks like steak.
The shop already has two locations in Northeast Philly, and a third in the Northeast suburb of Langhorne, all run by the Iliescu family. The Wildwood location, opening as soon as July in the space formerly home to Classic Sandwiches, will be the first Steve’s franchise.
Bowling, food, drink, arcades and more: Cape Square Entertainment Center
3801 US-9, Rio Grande. squaretheatres.com. Projected for end of May.
Sleepy Rio Grande will get a little less sleepy and a lot more filled with bowling balls.
After years in gestation, a former Kmart shopping center and vacant movie theater is set to become a massive entertainment complex. Cape Square Entertainment Center has long been in the works from developer Town Square Entertainment, which has brought multiple movie theaters to life along the South Jersey shore.
Town Square and the operators at the site have been a bit mum about the details and didn’t respond to requests for comment. But plans floated over the years have included two restaurants — one upscale, one casual — nine movie theater screens, a virtual golf course, an arcade and a 12-lane bowling alley.
The restaurants, whose details have not been announced, will come from some of the same people behind Jersey Shore spots like Capt’n Jacks Island Grill, Harbor Burger Bar and the new Nucky’s Speakeasy in Ventnor, according to people familiar with the project.
The center is set to be open as soon as Memorial Day, according to a March article by The Press of Atlantic City, citing Cape May County counsel Jeff Lindsay.
So whatever’s coming … it may be coming quite soon.
Matthew Korfhage is a Philadelphia-based writer for USA Today Network.
